Need to get from Santa Monica to the Hollywood Hills in 20 minutes? Want to go out drinking in West Hollywood then get home to Culver City without a DUI? Just want to be greener in your travels around town? Too bad. The LA Metro can’t help you.

Two Stylish Metro Patrons

If you are lucky enough to live on one of the scarce metro lines in LA, and are tenacious enough to use it, then you may find a few ways to shape your life around metro use. You’ll take that barista job near the Pershing Square station, you’ll make everyone meet you at a bar near the station at Hollywood and Vine, and you’ll always head home to your North Hollywood station by 11:30pm while the trains are still running. WHAT!? That last bit will never happen. And so, you rarely use the metro at all. Read More…

On the patio of the Sound and Stage event with cARTel -photo by Justin Baker

This town is full of adventure: mountains to climb, oceans to swim, over-priced food trucks to chase. So here’s a new destination for the Angelino whose done it all: cARTel. Anything cARTel is the place to be.

cARTel is a multi-media, multi-discipline production company that doesn’t just put on shows, they put on EXPERIENCES. Attending a cARTel event means every one of your senses will be engaged. You’ll be eating, drinking, laughing, crying, seeing, hearing, and touching their PRODUCTION.

El Sid (formerly an old-timey movie sound stage) set up to entertain guests at cARTel's even Sound/Stage as they dine and enjoy the live performance of an original radio play - photo by Justin Baker

I first experienced cARTel when I covered their FORTS exhibit for the LA Weekly. cARTel commissioned 10 local artists to create forts from their deepest childhood imaginings and build them, life size, at the Angel City Brewing Co. Downtown.

This teaser captures the crazy, joyful reverie that was this event:

On the night of the show they injected the space with a DJ, lights, performers, booze, food trucks, fire pits, and painters birthing murals along the wall. You could wander the grounds for hours and there was still more to explore.

Guests explore the forts in newspaper hats. - photo by Justin Baker

More recently I attended their Sight and Sound live radio play experience at El Sid. An original, modern radio play called Unplugged in the Amazon by Kit Steinkellner was recorded live in front of an audience while they dined on tapas, cheesecake and specialty cocktails mixed especially for the event.

Many of the attendees as well as the staff and performers threw themselves into the experience, dressing in elegant 1920s speakeasy-esque garb. El Sid itself used to be a soundstage for the movies of that era. Everyone got a professional photo op before the show and free cheesecake afterward.

Our communal table at Sound/Stage at El Sid - photo by Justin Baker

If you like leaving the house and doing stuff, then cARTel should be on your radar. Check them out at www.wearecartel.org . Maybe you’re an artist looking for some likeminded fellows to create with. Maybe you have a date you met online that you’re trying to impress with your coolness. Whatever your reason, check out whatever cARTel is up to next. You won’t be disappointed.

You can also listen to Unplugged in the Amazon, the radio play recorded at El Cid HERE.

And here’s a trailer for BROKECHELLA:

*Oooo newsy type info from my LA Weekly interview:

cARTel (formerly Ahmisa Artists) was founded in 2008 by its executive and artistic director, Negin Singh, while she was finishing her undergrad degree at UCI. “It started with my frustrations with how hard it was to create art,” Singh explained, “You know, getting a space, getting the money together, getting the rights. By the time it’s sanctioned, you don’t even want to make it anymore. We said, let’s make what we want to make and make it right now. Great art comes from when you just can’t stop”

View from Mt. San Gabriel, the Mountain that shamed Mt. Disappointment

IE. This hike will not disappoint you. As long as you appreciate drama!

Towering above the Los Angeles skyline, Mt. Disappointment stands proud, despite it’s name. In 1894, early surveyors saw the peak and believed it to be the tallest point in the San Gabriel Mountains. They made the climb only to find that they were completely wrong.

It was pretty easy for them to walk five minutes over to the highest peak, The San Gabriel Peak, only 1/2 a mile away, but they were so pissed at themselves that they took out their anger on the first mountain, labeling it for all time MT. DISAPPOINTMENT.

Great views along the way

If you would like to pay homage to the second highest peak of the San Gabriel Mountains…and then walk five minutes over to the Highest Peak. Follow our footsteps! Below are directions and then a picture tour of our hike including a panoramic video!

DIRECTIONS: From LA, take California 2 East into La Canada Flintridge. Continue on the 2 into the Angeles National Forest. You’ll be twisting and turning for a while. Turn right at Mount Wilson road. Continue past the little campground Red Box area. Turn right on the first paved rode you get to after this (about a minute and a half). Immediately on your right you’ll see a parking area.

If it’s all parked up just park on the main road. No one’s gonna tow you. Supposedly you have to have an Adventure Pass. You can buy one at “Jay’s Shell”, the gas station on the right when you get off the freeway at La Canada. It’s only $5.00 for a car for one day, or if you’re real optimistic about your outdoorsmanship, get the $30.00 year long pass.

This is the wrong way to go. The trail is actually to your left, up the mountain.

This little piggy wants wine, this little piggy wants beer, and this little piggy wants cupcakes, sushi, and pizza. What bar could possibly please them all?

Grocery Store Themed Wine Bar!

The Whole Foods Tapas and Wine bar! It’s located INSIDE the enormous Arroyo Whole Foods in Pasadena. If the somewhat cheesy furniture and locale makes you turn up your snobby hipster nose, just think of it as a ‘Grocery Store’ themed Wine Bar. How beat-the-man-at-his-own-game chic is that?

Don’t worry about what to order when visiting the first Hollywood Chic-fil-A on Sunset, worry about who to bring. This much-hyped Georgian fast food chain is known for it’s chicken sandwiches and happy cow mascot. But honestly, I would have ho-hummed over the meal I got there, if it wasn’t for one thing: My Southern Belle. Read More…

So what is the organization that the Coffee Commissary, located at the base of a modern apartment building in WeHo, sells to? I’d have to say: Coffee Snobs. Of which I am one. Or as we prefer to put it: People Interested in ‘Responsibly Good Coffee’ and Willing to Pay $4.00 for It. Read More…

If you want ROCKS. If you want SWIMMING HOLES. If you want BUNGEE JUMPING and CATERPILLERS WHO TURN LEAVES INTO LACE. Then this hike is for you.

There are plenty of other people who explain the Bridge to Nowhere Hike (located 1 mile SE of LA) blow by blow MUCH better than I can. I recommend Modern Hiker’s trail guide. He’s a rockstar. I promise that is the last pun for the rest of this article. Read More…